Paul Norris
Encyclopedia
Paul Leroy Norris was an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 comic book
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...

 artist
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...

 best known as co-creator of the DC Comics
DC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...

 superhero
Superhero
A superhero is a type of stock character, possessing "extraordinary or superhuman powers", dedicated to protecting the public. Since the debut of the prototypical superhero Superman in 1938, stories of superheroes — ranging from brief episodic adventures to continuing years-long sagas —...

 Aquaman
Aquaman
Aquaman is a fictional superhero who appears in comic books published by DC Comics. Created by Paul Norris and Mort Weisinger, the character debuted in More Fun Comics #73 . Initially a backup feature in DC's anthology titles, Aquaman later starred in several volumes of a solo title...

, and for a 35-year run as artist of the newspaper
Newspaper
A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...

 comic strip
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....

 Brick Bradford
Brick Bradford
Brick Bradford was a science fiction comic strip created by writer William Ritt, a journalist based in Cleveland, and artist Clarence Gray. It was first distributed in 1933 by Central Press Association, a subsidiary of King Features Syndicate....

.

Early life and career

Paul Norris was born in Greenville, Ohio
Greenville, Ohio
Greenville is a city in Darke County, Ohio, United States. The population was 13,227 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Darke County.-History:Greenville is the historic location of Fort Greene Ville,Greenville is a city in Darke County, Ohio, United States. The population was 13,227 at...

. Beginning 1934, during the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...

, he spent two years at Midland Lutheran College
Midland Lutheran College
Midland University, formerly Midland Lutheran College, is a private liberal arts college, located in Fremont, Nebraska, USA, and is affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America...

 in Fremont, Nebraska
Fremont, Nebraska
Fremont is a city in and the county seat of Dodge County, Nebraska, United States, near Omaha in the eastern part of the state. The population was 26,397 at the 2010 census....

 at the behest of his cousin, Dr. Emerson Reck, a journalism
Journalism
Journalism is the practice of investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a broad audience in a timely fashion. Though there are many variations of journalism, the ideal is to inform the intended audience. Along with covering organizations and institutions such as government and...

 professor and director of the school's news bureau. Self-described as having been "drawing pictures from the first time I could hold a pencil," Norris became art director
Art director
The art director is a person who supervise the creative process of a design.The term 'art director' is a blanket title for a variety of similar job functions in advertising, publishing, film and television, the Internet, and video games....

 of The Warrior, the college yearbook
Yearbook
A yearbook, also known as an annual, is a book to record, highlight, and commemorate the past year of a school or a book published annually. Virtually all American, Australian and Canadian high schools, most colleges and many elementary and middle schools publish yearbooks...

, and also performed in plays, served as president of the campus YMCA
YMCA
The Young Men's Christian Association is a worldwide organization of more than 45 million members from 125 national federations affiliated through the World Alliance of YMCAs...

, and painted signs for businesses.

After two years, Norris left college in an aborted attempt to pursue a career as comic strip
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....

 cartoonist. He recalled in 2006,
Norris worked on his grandmother's farm before obtaining a job at an electric-motor assembly plant in Dayton, Ohio
Dayton, Ohio
Dayton is the 6th largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Montgomery County, the fifth most populous county in the state. The population was 141,527 at the 2010 census. The Dayton Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 841,502 in the 2010 census...

. He also enrolled at the Dayton Art Institute
Dayton Art Institute
The Dayton Art Institute is a museum of fine arts in Dayton, Ohio, USA. The Dayton Art Institute was rated one of the top 10 best art museums in the United States for kids. The museum also ranks in the top 3% of all art museums in North America in 3 of 4 factors...

 School, where met his wife of 61 years, Ann, whom he married in 1939. He went on to become an illustrator and cartoonist
Cartoonist
A cartoonist is a person who specializes in drawing cartoons. This work is usually humorous, mainly created for entertainment, political commentary or advertising...

 for the Dayton Daily News
Dayton Daily News
The Dayton Daily News is a daily newspaper published in Dayton, Ohio. It is owned by Cox Enterprises. In the 2010 Associated Press Society of Ohio newspaper competition that takes place every year, DaytonDailyNews.com was named "the best large-newspaper web site in Ohio".-History:On August 15,...

.

Aquaman and Sandman

In 1940, Norris and his wife moved to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

, where he created the features "Futureman", "Power Nelson", and "Yank and Doodle" for the comic-book publisher Prize Publications. Historians tentatively identify Norris' comic-book debut as penciling and inking
Inker
The inker is one of the two line artists in a traditional comic book or graphic novel. After a pencilled drawing is given to the inker, the inker uses black ink to produce refined outlines over the pencil lines...

 the cover of Prize Publications' Prize Comics #6 (Aug. 1940), with his first confirmed credit the Power Nelson story "Introducing Gene West" two issues later. Norris' first confirmed credit for DC Comics
DC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...

 (then National Comics) is the story "The Sandman at Sea", starring DC's original Sandman
Sandman (Wesley Dodds)
Sandman , is a fictional superhero appearing in comic books published by DC Comics. The first of several DC characters to bear the name, he was created by writer Gardner Fox and artist Bert Christman....

, Wesley Dodds, in Adventure Comics
Adventure Comics
Adventure Comics was a comic book series published by DC Comics from 1935 to 1983 and then revamped from 2009 to 2011. In its first era, the series ran for 503 issues , making it the fifth-longest-running DC series, behind Detective Comics, Action Comics, Superman, and Batman...

 #65 (Aug. 1941). Norris and writer Mort Weisinger
Mort Weisinger
Mortimer Weisinger was an American magazine and comic book editor best known for editing DC Comics' Superman during the mid-1950s to 1960s, in the Silver Age of comic books...

 revamped that character in superhero
Superhero
A superhero is a type of stock character, possessing "extraordinary or superhuman powers", dedicated to protecting the public. Since the debut of the prototypical superhero Superman in 1938, stories of superheroes — ranging from brief episodic adventures to continuing years-long sagas —...

 attire and introduced sidekick
Sidekick
A sidekick is a close companion who is generally regarded as subordinate to the one he accompanies. Some well-known fictional sidekicks are Don Quixote's Sancho Panza, Sherlock Holmes' Doctor Watson, The Lone Ranger's Tonto, The Green Hornet's Kato and Batman's Robin.-Origins:The origin of the...

 Sandy the Golden Boy in issue #69 (Dec. 1941).

Norris and Weisinger introduced the undersea superhero
Superhero
A superhero is a type of stock character, possessing "extraordinary or superhuman powers", dedicated to protecting the public. Since the debut of the prototypical superhero Superman in 1938, stories of superheroes — ranging from brief episodic adventures to continuing years-long sagas —...

 Aquaman
Aquaman
Aquaman is a fictional superhero who appears in comic books published by DC Comics. Created by Paul Norris and Mort Weisinger, the character debuted in More Fun Comics #73 . Initially a backup feature in DC's anthology titles, Aquaman later starred in several volumes of a solo title...

 in the eight-page story "The Submarine Strikes" in More Fun Comics
More Fun Comics
More Fun Comics, originally titled New Fun: The Big Comic Magazine a.k.a. New Fun Comics, was a 1935-1947 American comic book anthology that introduced several major superhero characters and was the first American comic-book series to feature solely original material rather than reprints of...

 # 73 (Nov. 1941). That same year, Norris began drawing the adventure comic strip
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....

 Vic Jordan for PM
PM (newspaper)
PM was a leftist New York City daily newspaper published by Ralph Ingersoll from June 1940 to June 1948 and bankrolled by the eccentric Chicago millionaire Marshall Field III....

, one of the New York's daily afternoon papers. Norris said in 2007 that he had inadvertently signed an exclusive contract with PM and not realized this for year, after which he had to give up the "Aquaman" feature. In 1943, King Features Syndicate
King Features Syndicate
King Features Syndicate, a print syndication company owned by The Hearst Corporation, distributes about 150 comic strips, newspaper columns, editorial cartoons, puzzles and games to nearly 5000 newspapers worldwide...

 assigned Norris to write and draw the existing strip Secret Agent X-9
Secret Agent X-9
Secret Agent X-9 was a comic strip begun by writer Dashiell Hammett and artist Alex Raymond . Syndicated by King Features, it ran from January 22, 1934 until February 10, 1996....

, on which he worked for three months before being drafted into the U.S. Army.

World War II

Norris said that during his World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 military service as a tech sergeant
Sergeant
Sergeant is a rank used in some form by most militaries, police forces, and other uniformed organizations around the world. Its origins are the Latin serviens, "one who serves", through the French term Sergent....

, "I did a little [comic] strip for the ship newspaper" that came to the attention of Lieutenant General Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr.
Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr.
General Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr. was an American lieutenant general during World War II. He served in the Pacific Theater of Operations and commanded the defenses of Alaska early in the war. After that assignment, he was promoted to command 10th Army, which conducted the amphibious assault on...

 "He saw it and made the order that I be transferred from the 82nd Signal Battalion to JIC
Joint Intelligence Center
A Joint Intelligence Center is a focal point for military intelligence gathered by different intelligence agencies and administered by the Defense Intelligence Agency. The intelligence center of the joint force headquarters...

 POA 10th Army", where Norris illustrated propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....

 leaflets to be dropped from aircraft over Okinawa, urging Japanese
Japanese people
The are an ethnic group originating in the Japanese archipelago and are the predominant ethnic group of Japan. Worldwide, approximately 130 million people are of Japanese descent; of these, approximately 127 million are residents of Japan. People of Japanese ancestry who live in other countries...

 soldiers to surrender. "I worked with a prisoner of war
Prisoner of war
A prisoner of war or enemy prisoner of war is a person, whether civilian or combatant, who is held in custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict...

. We wanted the translations to be authentic". Norris in 2006 recalled the POW as George Totari, formerly a reporter for an English language
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 newspaper in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

.

While Norris told one interviewer that, "The Japanese came in with these things in their hands and wanted to surrender", he told another that the leaflet, designed to look like a comic-book page, had not yet gone into print when the atomic bomb was dropped on Japan, scuttling the project.

Brick Bradford and Gold Key

Following the war, Norris was rehired by King Features Syndicate
King Features Syndicate
King Features Syndicate, a print syndication company owned by The Hearst Corporation, distributes about 150 comic strips, newspaper columns, editorial cartoons, puzzles and games to nearly 5000 newspapers worldwide...

, and in 1948 began drawing the Sunday edition of Austin Briggs
Austin Briggs
Austin Briggs was a cartoonist and illustrator. Born in Humboldt, Minnesota he grew up in Detroit, Michigan before moving to New York City as a teenager. After working for a while at an advertising agency, he became an assistant to the cartoonist Alex Raymond on Flash Gordon and succeeded him on...

' comic strip
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....

 Jungle Jim
Jungle Jim
Jungle Jim is the fictional hero of a series of jungle adventures in various media. The series began in 1934 as an American newspaper comic strip chronicling the adventures of Asia-based hunter Jim Bradley, who was nicknamed Jungle Jim...

. He continued to freelance for DC Comics
DC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...

 through 1953, drawing the detective feature "Captain Compass
Captain Compass
Captain Compass is a nautical detective in the DC Comics universe first appearing in a 1948 Star Spangled Comics issue. A former private detective, Mark Compass is hired by a shipping company as a troubleshooter...

" in most issues of Star Spangled Comics #106-130 (July 1950 - July 1952), and the super-speedster feature "Johnny Quick
Johnny Quick
Johnny Quick is the name of two DC Comics characters, each with the power of superhuman speed. The first was a superhero who appeared mostly in More Fun Comics during the Golden Age...

" in Adventure Comics
Adventure Comics
Adventure Comics was a comic book series published by DC Comics from 1935 to 1983 and then revamped from 2009 to 2011. In its first era, the series ran for 503 issues , making it the fifth-longest-running DC series, behind Detective Comics, Action Comics, Superman, and Batman...

 #171-186 (Dec. 1951 - March 1953).

In 1952, Norris succeeded artist Clarence Gray
Clarence Gray
Clarence Gray was an American comic strip artist, best known for his long run drawing Brick Bradford for more than two decades...

 on the science-fiction comic strip Brick Bradford
Brick Bradford
Brick Bradford was a science fiction comic strip created by writer William Ritt, a journalist based in Cleveland, and artist Clarence Gray. It was first distributed in 1933 by Central Press Association, a subsidiary of King Features Syndicate....

, continuing to draw it for 35 years until his and the strip's retirement in 1987. The final daily appeared April 25, 1987.

As well in the 1950s, Norris drew issues of Dell Comics
Dell Comics
Dell Comics was the comic book publishing arm of Dell Publishing, which got its start in pulp magazines. It published comics from 1929 to 1973. At its peak, it was the most prominent and successful American company in the medium...

' Tom Corbett, Space Cadet
Tom Corbett, Space Cadet
Tom Corbett is the main character in a series of Tom Corbett — Space Cadet stories that were depicted in television, radio, books, comic books, comic strips, coloring books, punch-out books and View-Master reels in the 1950s....

 and Jungle Jim
Jungle Jim
Jungle Jim is the fictional hero of a series of jungle adventures in various media. The series began in 1934 as an American newspaper comic strip chronicling the adventures of Asia-based hunter Jim Bradley, who was nicknamed Jungle Jim...

, the latter of which he had previously drawn as a newspaper
Newspaper
A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...

 comic strip
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....

. The following decade, he drew stories of jungle
Jungle
A Jungle is an area of land in the tropics overgrown with dense vegetation.The word jungle originates from the Sanskrit word jangala which referred to uncultivated land. Although the Sanskrit word refers to "dry land", it has been suggested that an Anglo-Indian interpretation led to its...

 adventurer Tarzan
Tarzan
Tarzan is a fictional character, an archetypal feral child raised in the African jungles by the Mangani "great apes"; he later experiences civilization only to largely reject it and return to the wild as a heroic adventurer...

 and science-fiction hero Magnus, Robot Fighter
Magnus, Robot Fighter
Magnus, Robot Fighter is a fictional comic book superhero created by writer/artist Russ Manning in 1963, based primarily on Tarzan. Magnus first appeared in Magnus Robot Fighter 4000 A.D. #1, published by Gold Key Comics in February 1963...

 in comic books for Gold Key Comics
Gold Key Comics
Gold Key Comics was an imprint of Western Publishing created for comic books distributed to newsstands. Also known as Whitman Comics, Gold Key operated from 1962 to 1984.-History:...

.

With writer Gaylord DuBois
Gaylord DuBois
Gaylord McIlvaine Du Bois , or DuBois In his lifetime he wrote well over 3000 comic book stories and comic strips as well as Big Little Books and juvenile adventure...

, Norris co-created the Gold Key jungle characters Kono and Tono in the namesake series The Jungle Twins
Jungle Twins
The Jungle Twins was an American comic book series published by Gold Key Comics in the 1970s. The series was one of several new titles Gold Key created when they lost the rights to Edgar Rice Burroughs Tarzan characters.-Publication history:...

, which ran 17 original issues (April 1972 - Nov. 1975), followed by reprints.

Norris' last known comics story is co-penciling (with Roman Arambula and Scott Shaw
Scott Shaw
Scott Shaw is an American actor, author, journalist, film director, film producer, musician, professor and martial artist.-Early life:...

) the cover and the 17-page funny animal
Funny animal
Funny animal is a cartooning term for the genre of comics and animated cartoons in which the main characters are humanoid or talking animals, with anthropomorphic personality traits. The characters themselves may also be called funny animals...

 feature "Now You See Them...", starring Yogi Bear
Yogi Bear
Yogi Bear is a fictional bear who appears in animated cartoons created by Hanna-Barbera Productions. He made his debut in 1958 as a supporting character in The Huckleberry Hound Show. Yogi Bear was the first breakout character created by Hanna-Barbera, and was eventually more popular than...

, Scooby Doo, and a plethora of other Hanna-Barbera
Hanna-Barbera
Hanna-Barbera Productions, Inc. was an American animation studio that dominated North American television animation during the second half of the 20th century...

 animated TV series characters, in Marvel Comics
Marvel Comics
Marvel Worldwide, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media...

  Laff-A-Lympics
Laff-A-Lympics
Laff-A-Lympics was the co-headlining segment, with Scooby-Doo, of the package Saturday morning cartoon series Scooby's All-Star Laff-A-Lympics, produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions. The show was a spoof of the Olympics and the ABC television series Battle of the Network Stars, which debuted one...

 #10 (Dec. 1978). His last comics work was a drawing of Aquaman
Aquaman
Aquaman is a fictional superhero who appears in comic books published by DC Comics. Created by Paul Norris and Mort Weisinger, the character debuted in More Fun Comics #73 . Initially a backup feature in DC's anthology titles, Aquaman later starred in several volumes of a solo title...

 in DC Comics
DC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...

' multi-artist, multi-character "History of the DC Universe" poster in 1987.

Later life

Norris was living in Oceanside, California
Oceanside, California
-2010:The 2010 United States Census reported that Oceanside had a population of 167,086. The population density was 3,961.8 people per square mile...

 at the time of his death. Norris and his wife Ann, who died in 2000, had two sons, Michael and Paul Jr. (called Reed).

Further reading

  • Career Retrospective, Gold & Silver: Overstreet's Comic Book Quarterly #6 (December 1994). p. 114. Overstreet Publications.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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